- Poul Ruders
Cembal D'Amore - First Book (1986)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
Programme Note
Cembal d'Amore is a five-movement suite for harpsichord and piano which works with the timbres of two very different-sounding instruments.
The composer says that he ‘hears early music through the tears of centuries’. This moving formulation comes to expression in the work, in the sense that the early music glitters, so to speak, as a poetically imaginative undertone, through the highly contemporary structure. At one point the old music emerges so strongly in the sound-picture that it becomes quite tangible: a sarabande by Händel.
Just as the external appearance of the instruments embodies the opposition between ancient and modern, the work itself profiles a meticulously calculated tension between archaizing expression and contemporary construction.
The composer says that he ‘hears early music through the tears of centuries’. This moving formulation comes to expression in the work, in the sense that the early music glitters, so to speak, as a poetically imaginative undertone, through the highly contemporary structure. At one point the old music emerges so strongly in the sound-picture that it becomes quite tangible: a sarabande by Händel.
Just as the external appearance of the instruments embodies the opposition between ancient and modern, the work itself profiles a meticulously calculated tension between archaizing expression and contemporary construction.
Media
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: I. Prologue
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: II. Allemande
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: III. Corrente I
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: IV. Corrente II
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: V. Air
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: VI. Menuet
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: VII. Gigue
Cembal d'amore, Book 2: VIII. Epilogue
Discography
Ruders Edition Vol.5

- Label9237
- Catalogue NumberBridge
- ConductorJustin Brown / Paul Mann
- EnsembleOdense Symphony Orchestra / Alabama Symphony Orchestra
- SoloistStephen Gosling, piano; Steven Beck, harpsichord; June Han, harp; John Kruse, clarinet; Bjarne Hansen & Kazimierz Skowronek, violin
- Released11th February 2008